It was a dark and stormy night…well, not really stormy, but certainly very windy one day last week.
Gus had been pacing around all evening. With his huge satellite dish ears, he heard every rattle, bang and squeak and he was quite agitated by it all.
Finally I managed to get him to go out for his own comfort. That dog can hold his bladder for hours (16 is his record). I am so jealous. (‘You only manage about 16 minutes” muttered Gareth. Huh. Harsh, but fairly true…)
At bedtime, Gus decided he really didn’t want to stay on his own downstairs, so, rather to my surprise, he shot up the stairs in front of my own slow progress.
We do have a bed in our bedroom for him for the odd time he does decide to come up. He paced around a bit but then settled.
Then a cat miaowed outside. Gus barked, causing Himself to jump a foot off the bed in alarm, “What the ….?” he slurred, only being half awake. “What’s that b…. dog doing up here?”
Having soothed both Himself and Gus, we all finally settled for the night.
The next morning, after a joint cuddle on the bed, I set off to go downstairs. Gus tentatively tried to walk across the slippy wooden floored landing.
Then I turned back to the bedroom for something I’d forgotten. Gus tried to turn too, his back legs slipped from under him and he shot back into the bedroom.
Thus followed a comedy of errors. Gus wanted to follow me downstairs but couldn’t bring himself to walk past the area where he’d slipped. No amount of coaxing helped, he really had frightened himself. So I went downstairs and did my regular chores, hoping he’d pluck up the courage to follow, but no. All I could hear were the pitiful whines from above.
Himself finally arose from his pit. He tried coaxing too, with no more success than me. So Himself got Gus’s lead and we tried to help him along with that, but Gus dug his claws in and refused to follow. Eventually Himself had to carry Gus across the landing and all the way downstairs.
Gus is fine now, but Himself’s back will take some time to recover.
Some dogs are just born fearful. Gus certainly was. Despite all my efforts when he was young he still has quite a few fears. (You can read about his progress that first year in my latest book, Chaos to Calmish available from our website or from Amazon.)
Dealing with doggy fears take a long time and needs bucketloads of patience. Gus is still, even at 6 years old, very much a work in progress for this and this latest event adds another thing to work on to the list…
Keep training,
Carol